Will Obama’s Department of Justice ever criminalize speech against any religion?

Top Justice Department officials convened a meeting Wednesday where invited Islamist advocates lobbied them for cutbacks in anti-terror funding, changes in agents’ training manuals, additional curbs on investigators and a legal declaration that U.S. citizens’ criticism of Islam constitutes racial discrimination.

The department’s “civil rights lawyers are top of the line — I say this with utter honesty — I know they can come up with a way” to redefine criticism as discrimination, said Sahar Aziz, a female, Egyptian-American lawyer…

The audience of Islamist advocates and department officials included Tom Perez, who heads the department’s division of civil rights.

“We must continue to have the open and honest and critical dialogue that you saw in the robust debate,” Perez responded in an enthusiastic closing speech a few minutes after Aziz made her demands at the event.

“I sat here the entire time, taking notes,” Perez said. “I have some very concrete thoughts … in the aftermath of this.”

This prompted the following exchange between Perez and AZ Rep. Trent Franks (R) during a Constitution Subcommittee hearing last July:

I don’t know about you, but after the events of the past 7 days, I’d like to hear an answer to this question. Which is why nobody will give us one.

That darn Romney! Making wingnuts all paranoid and stuff. It can’t happen here…